Sex predator jailed after attacks on schoolgirls

Man who has been jailed 14 times branded a ‘high risk’ to public safety

A high risk offender who carried out sex attacks on two schoolgirls shortly after his release from jail was given an indefinite prison sentence yesterday.

Michael Harlow, 26, bought alcohol for underage girls from a store in Cowdenbeath before indecently assaulting a 14-year-old in the Fife town in defiance of a court order banning him contacting children.

Less than a fortnight later he struck again in Dunfermline when he grabbed a 15-year-old schoolgirl and lifted her up and started taking her down an alley.

The teenager, who managed to break free, told the High Court in Edinburgh: “I just kept screaming and kicking him.”

Unemployed Harlow had denied committing the sexual assaults at Chapel Street in Cowdenbeath on February 20 last year and at Chapel Street in Dunfermline on March 2, but was found guilty by a jury.

He then pled guilty to two offences of breaching a Risk of Sexual Harm Order imposed by a sheriff in 2014 which prohibited him having contact or communication with any child under the age of 16.

Harlow had been freed from Perth Prison in December 2016 after being jailed for an earlier breach of such an order.

The court heard Harlow has five convictions for breaching the notification requirements of the sex offenders register and three for breaching sexual harm orders.

Lord Uist said an experienced psychiatrist who produced a risk assessment report on Harlow concluded he had “an enduring propensity to seriously endanger the public”.

He pointed out a forensic psychologist assessed him as “a high risk to the safety of the public at large on being at liberty”.

He fixed a minimum period of 30 months Harlow must serve in jail before he becomes eligible to apply for parole.

Lord Uist said: “You must not assume you will be released at the end of that period.

“You will be released only when it is considered no longer necessary for the protection of the public that you continue to be confined in prison.”

Harlow was told that he would be on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

Harlow, who has been jailed 14 times, previously told a social worker that he would never comply with a sex offences prevention order because he did not believe it was necessary.

Before the offence in Cowdenbeath, Harlow’s victim was with friends and the court was told they were all aged between 13 and 15.

He remained with the group until they split up and then sexually assaulted the young girl.

He spotted his second victim at Dunfermline bus station and, after bombarding her with messages on social media in later days, met her again and attacked her.